House Of Bondage Mystery, The Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  1/3/2007

The Little Details

Running Time: min.

Production Date: 2003

Director: Oak O'Kork

Cast: Amber Michaels, Ander Page, Angelique Lei, Carolyn Monroe, Cory Lane, Chanta Rose, Mary Jane, Ryan Conners, Summer Cummings, and a guy or two

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: Harmony Concepts just hasn't been my bag so far, but every now and then I just can't resist taking a risk...

Initial Reaction:

Who Should Watch It : Anybody wanting to see women tied up and struggling

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody wanting sex

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: As with most bondage releases, the technical aspects are lacking a bit. There's a lot of camera noise and hissing in the background throughout the movie, and the balance falters a little in places too. The video is presented in the full frame format, and looks okay. There's a touch of pixelation, but the action is nicely lit and there isn't a lot of camera motion.

Music: There's a little threatening music now and then.

Disc Complaints: The authoring on this DVD is a bit funky. Each scene has its own title on the DVD and there's no time stamp to let you jump where ever you want in the scene. This makes navigating the DVD a bit difficult, but Harmony Concepts does help things out a bit with lots of chapter breaks. This DVD seems to have some pretty primitive authoring.

Menus: The main menu is okay, and combines a bit of animation with a clip from the movie. The chapter menu is pretty basic, and lets you choose a scene based on a title for each scene.

The Feature

Amber's seeing things, and when she passes out she gets Cory a little worried. When she comes to she tells Cory that she saw girls in every room bound and gagged and struggling against their bonds, including Cory. She lies back to sleep, but when she wakes up she finds herself back in the dream world where everybody's tied up. Amber finds that things aren't as they seem, and is bound and gagged herself when she interferes with Cory's plan. When Amber starts to escape, she's caught by Angelique and they both find themselves bound and gagged as the major player lets them know how he's going to get rid of them.

This is a cool little segment. It works the bondage into a good framework, and there's a decent story to back it up. Both Amber and Cory do a very nice job with their roles, and both look fantastic. Cory really did it for me with her few outfits, but Amber also looked very nice. This is easily the best thing I've seen from Harmony Concepts, and it actually makes me want to check out more of Oak O'Kork's work.

The rest of the movie is devoted to the longer cuts of the individual bondage segments. As the action is all very similar, I'm just going to give a quick breakdown of the girls as follows:
Cory Lane in a yellow and purple bra and panty set tied up with purple rope and with red tape over her mouth
Amber Michaels in an orange top and black skirt tied up with white rope and a red gag
Chanta Rose in a purple top and skirt tied up with white rope and with white tape on her mouth
Carolyn Monroe in a black skirt and pink sleeveless sweater tied to a chair with black rope and with tape over her mouth with Summer Cummings, also in a black skirt and a white top that's open to show her huge titties stressing their pink bra tied to a chair with white rope with tape over her mouth. As they struggle, the titties pop out.
Cory Lane in a brown pinstripe top with a brown skirt and black dress boots tied to a chair with brown rope and with a pink gag. As she struggles, her tits come out
Ander Page in white bra and panty set with a red gag tied to a chair and a post with white rope
Mary Jane in a pink spaghetti strap top and purple skirt tied up with brown rope and with a yellow and orange scarf as a gag on a bed. As she struggles, her tits come out.
Angelique Lei in a brown bra and boyshort panties hogtied with black rope and with white tape on her mouth and Ryan Conner in baby blue bra and panties with white tape on her mouth hogtied with handcuffs

House of Bondage Mystery worked surprisingly well for me. I really liked how it started out with a mini-feature revolving around bondage and then backed up to show longer takes of all the quick segments. This gave the release some nice substance while still giving plenty of well done bondage action. Whether you like to see girls struggling in bondage or not (and I normally fall in the latter camp), one can't deny that Harmony Concepts knows what it's doing. The rope work is great, and there's some real beauty to how they tie the girls up. They go from a simple bra and panties to business outfits here, and I think the diversity of the outfits was another thing that helped this one work much better for me. I haven't been much of a Harmony Concepts fan, but I really like what they did with House of Bondage Mystery, and I'd definitely recommend it to anybody who's curious about what they have to offer.

The Extra Stuff

A trailer is included for OK-53. There's also a photo gallery lasting almost four minutes with about five seconds per okay looking snapshot or full screen photo.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Bondage

Raincoat Factor: Very high if you're into girls being tied up and struggling. Very low if you're not.

Condom Usage: None needed

The Bottom Line:

Currently, many of Harmony Concepts’ DVDs can be found online for between about $16 and $25, with stores offering them everywhere in between. If you're at all curious about what Harmony Concepts has to offer, or even if you're a long time fan of their work, this one's worth checking out. The action is nicely done, and the story to go with it works well. The technical aspects are a little weak, but not bad for a bondage release. As usual with bondage releases, there's no real effort put into the extras. This is a pretty good bondage DVD that's mostly held back by the DVD authoring.

Note to Harmony Concepts: A little effort towards improving your DVD authoring could go a long way.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me .

Other reviews by Astroknight